Cryospheric Sciences

Image of the Week — Future Decline of sea-ice extent in the Arctic (from IPCC)

Sophie Berger December 1, 2015

Left: Projection of sea-ice extent in the Northern Hemisphere [NH], for the different scenarios of the IPCC ( RCPs). The dashed lines are the mean of all the models used in the CMIP5 experiment while the solid lines come from a subset of models that fit the observations the best. Right: maps of multi-model results in 2081-2100. The white and grey coloring result from the ensemble and the subset of models, respectively. (Credit: IPCC (2013), Assessment Report 5, Working Group I, Technical Summary , Figure TS.17, p92)

The Arctic sea-ice extent has declined in the past 20 years and its future is uncertain. In the end, greenhouse gas emissions will determine the impact on the sea-ice from man-made climate change through radiative forcing (i.e. Representative Concentration Pathways or RCPs). The COP21 can determine the path we will follow and which course we will take to reduce emissions. Reduction in sea-ice cove ...[Read More]

Image of the Week: Under the Sea

Sophie Berger November 20, 2015

Sea ice from below. Credit: Marcus Arnold

Always wondered how it looks like under the sea ice? Getting an answer is simpler than you might think: Just go out to the front of McMurdo ice shelf in Antarctica and drill a tube into the sea ice. Then let people climb down and take pictures of the ice from below. More information: – Photo taken by Marcus Arnold, Gateway Antarctica, University of Canterbury during his November 2015, Antarc ...[Read More]

Image of the Week — What’s up with the sea-ice leads?

Sophie Berger November 13, 2015

Two polarimetric SAR images Artctic Sea Ice. The colours reflect the different polarimetric channels of the SAR (red = VV, green = HV and blue = HH). Credit: Jakob Grahn.

This illustration shows two Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images taken over sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. Both images are polarimetric and the different colours reflect the different polarimetric channels of the SAR (red = VV, green = HV and blue = HH). The two images are from the two satellites “ALOS-2” and “RADARSAT-2”. These are equipped with radars that operate at wavel ...[Read More]

Camping on the Svalbard coast

Marie Kotovitch September 9, 2015

In the field (credit: A. Lourenço)

In early April 2015, a small team of 2 Belgian and 2 French researchers went to Svalbard. The goal? Testing new methods to measure sea-ice thickness and ice algal biomass, but also measuring greenhouse gases in the sea ice in relation with the ‘STeP’ (Storfjorden Polynya multidisciplinary study) campaign. With funding from the French Polar Institute (IPEV) and IPSL and logistical arrangements by t ...[Read More]

Cruising for mud: Sediments from the ocean floor as a climate indicator

Iben Koldtoft August 24, 2015

The Norwegian research vessel G.O. Sars after arriving in Tromsø with more than 200 m of sediment cores to document past abrupt climate change. Photo credit: Iben Koldtoft

Going on a cruise for a month sounds tempting for most people and that is exactly how I spent one month of my summer. Instead of sunshine and 25 degrees, the temperature was closer to the freezing point on the thermometer and normal summer weather was replaced by milder weather conditions. The destination of the cruise was the western Nordic Sea and the east Greenland Margin. The ice2ice cruise wa ...[Read More]

Do Beers Go Stale in the Arctic? – Jakob Sievers

Nanna B. Karlsson March 13, 2015

A curious polar bear investigates an instrument tower on sea-ice. Photo: Jakob Sievers.

A story about CO2 -fluxes between sea-ice and the atmosphere What’s it all about? Whenever I have had to describe my PhD research project to people outside of my research community, I have always found it useful to use an analogy most people are familiar with, namely beers. Now that I have the full attention of the entire class, allow me to explain. Say you were to find yourself at an outside café ...[Read More]